Champagne Navy: Canada's Small Boat Raiders of the Second World War

Sidney Allinson is the editor at the Royal Canadian Military Institute
and author of The Bantams: The Untold Story of World War I.

There seems to have been a certain “something” about individual
combat that particularly appealed to young Canadian men in the two world
wars. Reading Champagne Navy—an account of light coastal
forces—reminds one of the same devil-may-care bravery, impatience with
authority, and liking for independent action that made Canadians excel
also as fighter pilots.

Nolan and Street make able use of many personal reminiscences of men
who served in small boats in the Straits of Dover and Mediterranean Sea
long ago. The wry, self-effacing language of the naval veterans is in
sharp contrast to the desperate battles they fought against enemy ships
and angry seas.

Two Canadian flotillas served with Coastal Forces of the Royal Navy in
World War II. They fought against their opponents, equally valiant and
skilled German sailors, who were usually equipped with superior, faster
vessels. Here is all the authentic atmosphere of small-boat
warfare—violent seas, dangerous storms, bitter cold, terror, and
boredom suddenly interrupted by the glare of starshells and the racket
of automatic cannon fire as bloody, confusing “night actions”
exploded.

There is good background reporting here, too, about the personal,
off-duty side of life for the crews of those tiny fighting ships. The
origins of Canada’s small-boat personnel are also interesting: a
notable number of officers came from “social” city yacht clubs
(hence the book’s title), while the ordinary seamen gravitated to
small-boat service from homes often far from the sea.

One quibble: the raiders’ record would have been put in better
perspective had the authors included the number of Canadians who served,
their casualty figures, and total number of RCN boats lost. However,
this book forms an admirable record of those intrepid young sailors who
fought their little-known war so effectively.